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When the party has died down, Isabella, for one, is well and truly exhausted. She explores the palace until she finds a room with a bed in it, and into this bed she flops, still in her clothes and holding her staff and carrying the cordial in her pocket. She sleeps late, because the party kept her up so late and she hadn't really slept the night before; but around noon, she stirs, and gets up, and goes looking for James and wherever her backpack may have got to. The backpack she finds in the great hall where the principal mass of the party was; some enterprising creature took both bags from the battlefield at Beruna up to the castle for them, and she only wishes she knew who it was. She takes her bag to her room and carries James's with her and continues looking for her friend.
wood.
She re-wraps the present, and puts it away, and contemplates this development.
Then she goes out and celebrates Kingsday. It is a good holiday and she is proud to be attached to it.
And if the opportunity should arise to ask Queen Isabella whether she got any interesting Kingsday presents this year, besides the useful and stylish new bag James leaves outside her door shortly after breakfast...
"I got a bag," wink, "and a coconut from the Isles and a comb and a sampler. You?"
"A lovely little framed calligraphed math proof, and a couple of books, and a really nice belt, and, uh, something else that I'm pretty sure is from Viridian and that implies things about the sex lives of dryads that I definitely didn't know yesterday."
"It didn't come with a label, and Narnia doesn't exactly have comprehensive sex education - I wonder if I should try to think of something to do about that - anyway, I don't know what it's called and I'm having trouble describing it but I can just show you if you're curious."
And there it is, in her room. Wrapped in bark. James unwraps it again. She is blushing slightly.
"That's... yeah, I don't have a great explanation for that unless you've been having conversations with Viridian that I doubt you have been. I guess she thought you'd... like... it?"
"I don't not like it. And no, I have not been having the kind of conversations with Viridian that would lead to her getting me a," she gestures at the present. "Unless this is her way of saying 'this kissing thing your majesties are doing seems to be going well, maybe you'd like to try... non-kissing'."
"I guess. I mean, it's probably less mortifying than her sitting us down and suggesting it, but wow."
"I bet there is a word for it but I don't really want to ask her."
"Maybe I'll work up the courage to ask at some point. Until then, I guess I can just think of it as my Kingsday present."
"So, do we want to try non-kissing? With or without my Kingsday present being involved."
"I mean, eventually? I didn't have a timeline in mind. But soon is - good."
"I didn't have a timeline in mind either. But, yeah. I approve of soon."
The next morning, the queen wakes up in the king's bed.
Snuggle.
Royal snuggles. They're very snuggly. James is pretty pleased about them. What a nice way to wake up.